


third of december

by hotcuppa



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25353688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotcuppa/pseuds/hotcuppa
Summary: When Morgan brings Savannah to meet the team, Reid kind of feels like he’s suffocating.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 13
Kudos: 264





	third of december

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by and titled after heather by conan gray ❤️
> 
> once again not rly set at any particular time. pls be kind !!

_“i tried to hate you, to forgive you, all just to forget you, but i’m only capable of loving you. you’re tattooed onto my skin, and the more i try to erase you, the deeper you sink in.”_

_–mirella muffarotto_

for a long, scary moment, reid feels like he’s suffocating. 

he knows that he isn’t. if he is having a panic attack, which is what it feels like, then his brain is simply activating its ‘suffocating alarm’ system as a result of the intense anxiety, and that he’ll be fine physically. but knowing that doesn’t make it feel any better. not when he can’t catch his breath, not when the room is spinning, not when savannah is _so_ beautiful and derek—morgan—looks so happy. 

the rest of the team is shaking her hand, smiling, laughing with her. talking to morgan. congratulating him, asking him questions, giving him hugs. that’s what reid should be doing. there’s no reason why he should be standing in the back having a panic attack. not in front of everyone. 

he doesn’t excuse himself; nobody is paying any attention to him, and he doesn’t want to alert anyone to his panic attack. it would only make it more humiliating, if the team should see it. he just slowly steps away from the group, and when he’s far enough away, he hurries towards the bathroom. all he needs to do is splash some water on his face, take a moment in the quiet to calm down. it’ll be fine. 

reid doesn’t make it to the bathroom. he collapses to the floor in an empty hallway outside of the BAU, out of the view of the doors. nobody can see him, so he drops the pretense of being fine, and does what he knows will help the panic attack: head between his knees, eyes closed, deep breaths in for a count of four and out for a count of four, and identify a safe place. he thinks of the beach in santa monica where his parents took him when he was three, before his dad left. 

once his breathing slows and he feels less like he’s going to pass out, he raises his head and does the grounding technique he often recites to traumatized children. five things he can see: lights, a garbage can, a fake plant, his shoes, a doorknob. four things he can touch: the floor, his pants, his shoelace, his nose. three things he can hear: distant laughter, keyboard clicks, the hum of the air conditioning. two things he can smell: printer ink and disinfectant. one thing he can taste: nothing, so he digs in his bag for a mint. 

he lets his eyes slip closed again, and fights back the onslaught of tears that he feels gathering. 

it isn’t that he doesn’t like savannah, or that he isn’t happy for morgan. of course he’s happy for them. he’s known that morgan had a girlfriend for a while, due to certain behaviors he’d noticed, and small comments he’d made. it wasn’t like this was just sprung on him, really. but when the mystery girl didn’t have a face or a name, or even a confirmed existence, it was easy for reid to compartmentalize. it was easy for him to pretend that maybe he was wrong this time. maybe it wouldn’t last. maybe she wasn’t real. 

seeing her had made it real. reid couldn’t deny her existence when she was directly in front of him. he couldn’t even ignore it. he was forced to look her in her beautiful eyes, and smile at her, and tell her his name. and it’s no fault of savannah’s, really. it’s not her fault that she’s gorgeous and kind and funny and clearly the best thing that’s happened to morgan in years. it’s not her fault that reid’s been in love with morgan since 2004. it’s not her fault that reid never said anything. it’s not her fault. 

he wishes it could be, though. he wishes he could blame her. he wishes he could hate her. he wishes she’d wronged him, so he’d have an excuse to avoid her. he wishes she wasn’t so kind. 

more than anything, he wishes she wasn’t so goddamn beautiful. 

“reid?” it’s prentiss, and reid doesn’t have it within him to lift his head and look at her, but he does open his eyes. he’s embarrassed. he knows without her saying so that she knows why he’d run out. “are you okay?”

“there are two kinds of panic attacks,” reid mumbles out, his voice so hoarse and reedy that he cringes, “expected, or cued, and unexpected. expected panic attacks occur as a result of certain cues, whereas unexpected panic attacks can occur suddenly without any obvious cues, like specific phobias or a traumatic event.”

vaguely, reid registers prentiss sitting across from him, leaning her back against the opposite wall as she looks at him. he knows she’s profiling him, but he doesn’t say anything about it. at least she’s not trying to hug him. 

“it must’ve been hard for you to meet her,” prentiss murmurs, and reid closes his eyes. “i didn’t think about it until i noticed you were gone. i’m sorry he dropped her on us like that. if he knew that—”

“don’t say it,” reid interrupts her. 

she sighs heavily, and reid finally looks up at her. she looks concerned, and it only worsens when she takes in how awful he apparently looks. “i’m sorry, spencer,” she urges, and he knows she’s serious because she’s using his first name. “i wish there was something i could do. i know how badly this hurts, trust me. i know it feels like it’ll never go away because you’ll never get closure, and maybe that’s true. maybe it never goes away, maybe it just… maybe it just becomes a part of you, something you can live with, until you barely notice it anymore. i still love someone that i shouldn’t. i don’t think i’ll ever stop. but that doesn’t mean it still hurts. the love won’t go away, maybe, but the hurt will. i promise the hurt will go away.”

the hurt has existed since 2004, reid thinks, but he doesn’t tell her that. the only thing worse than being so publicly humiliated (even if morgan didn’t realize that’s what he did) is admitting that he’s loved morgan for nine years. 

he remembers back then, when he’d just started at the BAU and morgan had so quickly become one of his closest friends. he remembers all the dinners, all the lunches, all the game nights, all the movie nights, all the cases they shared rooms, all the flights on the jet where morgan tried to beat him in cards or chess. 

of course, he remembers the moment he realized he was in love with morgan: october 31st, 2004. they had just finished a case in montana and were unable to fly home until the next day, and reid had been upset about missing halloween, his favorite holiday. it was 9:30pm when morgan had asked reid to come to his hotel room, and when reid arrived, he found the entire team there with pumpkin buckets full of candy and cheap decorations all over the room, like banners and plastic skulls and fake spiders. they’d stayed up way too late drinking cheap apple cider and eating candy corn, and morgan had even managed to find a candy apple for reid to have. 

it was only after the entire team left and reid had stayed behind to help morgan clean up that he’d asked why morgan did that. morgan hated halloween, still does, and had always been vocal about it. and it wasn’t like reid was missing a birthday or christmas, it was just halloween. there was no reason to throw a party in a montana hotel room after the conclusion of such a tough case. morgan had just shrugged and said, _i knew you were upset about missing halloween, pretty boy, and i just… wanted to do something nice. i like you a lot better when you’re happy._

he’d gone on to make a joke about how annoying reid is when he pouts and whines, but reid hadn’t been able to focus on that. not when he was so suddenly overcome with such intense feelings that he’d never felt for anyone before. _love._

of course, he knew from the first moment that he’d never be able to tell morgan about his feelings. not even when it went from a crush to love. the fbi has fraternization rules, he didn’t want to jeopardize team dynamics, and he also just didn’t want to ruin his friendship with morgan. so he knew, going into it, that he’d never be loved back. 

but knowing didn’t make it hurt any less. 

“she’s pretty,” reid croaks out, tears thick on the back of his throat. “she’s really pretty, emily.”

“oh, reid…” she starts to scoot closer, but freezes when another set of footsteps fills the hallway. they both look up in time to see morgan turning the corner. 

reid quickly turns his face and harshly wipes at the tears, desperate not to let morgan see him like this. 

“everything okay? what’s going on, reid?” morgan asks, suddenly much closer than reid wants him to be, and reid pushes up to his feet so he can take off if he needs to. 

prentiss catches his arm, and steadies him when his knees shake. “it’s nothing, morgan, just a random panic attack. he doesn’t know what brought it on, could be a symptom of his migraines.”

“actually, most people that are diagnosed with an anxiety or panic disorder are more likely to experience frequent headaches or migraines; so really, it would be the other way around. meaning that the migraines would be a symptom of a panic disorder, if i were to have one.” he winces as he finishes talking, realizing the idiocy of correcting that. prentiss had given him an out, and he’d ruined it. 

morgan meets his eyes, and reid watches his desperate attempt to analyze the situation. watches as he searches reid for some answers, and probably only finds a dozen more questions. 

ignorance is bliss, reid supposes. 

“there’s just a lot on my mind,” reid tries to explain. morgan will know if he’s lying, so he scrambles to come up with half-truths that will hopefully do the trick and get morgan off of his back. “my mom isn’t doing great right now, and… i’m just a bit worried about her. and, you know, the last case was pretty tough, and then the holidays are coming up so i’ve been thinking about that. i don’t know. it came out of nowhere.”

morgan takes a long look at him, and then steps forward to touch his shoulder. reid knows he tenses up under the touch, and he knows that morgan feels it happen. “pretty boy, you know you can talk to me about anything, right? and i mean _anything._ i just want to know what’s bothering you, so i can help you.”

reid shoots a desperate glance to prentiss, who just gives him a soft look of _tell him, it’s okay,_ before squeezing his arm one final time and walking away. 

he knows that she’s trying to be thoughtful by giving them space, but he kind of hates her right now for leaving him alone with morgan. 

“come on, kid,” morgan repeats, softer this time than before. “talk to me. tell me what’s going on.”

reid drops his gaze to his shoes, and scuffs the toe against the tile. maybe he should just come clean to morgan. nothing will happen as a result, but it’ll finally be off of his chest. morgan will know, and nothing will change because morgan has savannah and reid knows how to ignore his feelings (especially once he’s not bottling them up anymore), and maybe he can finally move on. 

he sighs, and tries to build the courage. “it’s just… it’s not anything bad,” he mumbles out, still way more interested in the floor and his shoes than morgan. he couldn’t make eye contact right now even if he wanted to. “there’s just something else going on. something i’ve been keeping from you, and it’s been eating me alive. you know, actually, a study from last year by the harvard school of public health and the university of rochester found that people who bottle up their emotions increase their chance of premature death from all causes by more than 30%, and their risk of being diagnosed with cancer by 70%. keeping your emotions inside causes a lot of stress, which can cause anxiety, depression, and aggression. and physically it can cause an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. and, really, it’s all for nothing because the study also found that avoiding feelings actually makes them stronger, so—”

“reid, is there a point in there somewhere?”

reid’s entire face flushes, and he closes his eyes as the panic begins to rise in his chest again, making his heart rate increase and his chest begin to tighten up. 

he opens his eyes. five things he can see: the floor, his shoes, morgan’s shoes, a stain on the leg of morgan’s jeans, a peek of his own yellow sock. four things he can touch: his shirt, his pants, the wall beside him, his ID. three things he can hear: morgan’s breathing, a fax machine, garcia’s loud talking in the distance. two things he can smell: morgan’s cologne and air freshener. one thing he can taste: the remnant of the mint. 

“you know, mor— derek, you’re one of my best friends. probably my best friend. and we’ve been friends for a long time, and i don’t want this to change anything. that’s why i never said anything before. i don’t want you to think differently of me, or not want to be around me anymore. i didn’t want to lose my best friend. but i think, now, that it would be worse if i _didn’t_ say anything, because it’s eating me from the inside out and i just can’t keep holding it in and pretending that everything is okay when—”

“derek?” savannah calms down the hallway, and reid immediately pulls away from morgan’s touch. the click of her heels on the floor overtakes every sound reid identified before as she approaches them, eventually settling herself next to morgan and slipping her hand into his. reid forces himself not to look. “is everything okay? you’ve been gone awhile.”

“yeah, reid and i were just—”

“saying goodnight,” reid interjects, looking in the general direction but avoiding direct eye contact with either one of them. “it was nice to meet you, savannah. see you tomorrow, morgan.” reid straightens up his satchel and then takes off towards the elevator, pretending he doesn’t hear morgan asking for him to wait so they can talk. 

reid doesn’t want to talk anymore. 

//

reid never calls out of work, unless he’s sick beyond being capable of work. he’s had perfect attendance for two and a half years straight.

but today, a monday, is the first time he’s gone back into the office since last wednesday when they’d met savannah. he’d taken thursday and friday off, and dodged all of his teammate’s calls (unless they were from hotch, because that’s still his boss). but he couldn’t avoid them anymore. 

as reid walks into the office, he feels all eyes on him. prentiss and jj had come to his apartment to visit this weekend, and he’d let them. prentiss had been kind enough not to mention the reason why reid had called out of work, but reid suspected that jj had figured it out, too. they are profilers after all. it’s honestly a wonder that morgan himself hasn’t figured it out. 

“hey, reid!” garcia smiles when she sees him, and reid gives her a genuine smile back, letting her pull him in for a hug. “i missed you last week, it was awfully quiet around the office without your statistics and magic tricks.”

reid laughs, “thanks, garcia. do we have a case or anything?”

“nope, not yet. just another paperwork day. the serial killers have been pretty quiet the last few weeks. maybe they’re getting into the holiday spirit.”

“we can only hope.” he says a quick goodbye to garcia and then moves to his desk, sitting down and preparing to catch up on all of the work that he missed over the last two days. 

he chats casually with the rest of the team the entire morning, artfully avoiding morgan. he listens when morgan speaks, but he doesn’t ever respond, and he makes sure he never speaks directly to or about morgan. he’s sure everybody notices—it’s common knowledge that reid is petty and passive aggressive. 

by the end of the day, reid’s managed to avoid morgan entirely. he counts it as a win, because he knows it won’t go like this everyday this week. they’ll be forced to interact at some point, especially if they get a case. and reid will have to be civil and professional, which he can do. it’s not like he’s _angry_ at morgan or anything, he just doesn’t want to be around him right now. for his own sake. 

as the day winds down, one by one his coworkers start leaving. jj first, then rossi, prentiss, garcia, even hotch leaves before morgan does. and reid is trying to stick it out, trying to make it look like he has tons of work so he has to leave last so he can’t be cornered, but he’s running out of fake work to do and morgan isn’t budging. 

so reid gives in, clicking off his desk lamp and putting his bag over his shoulder. he walks out without saying goodbye to morgan, but it doesn’t really matter, because as suspected morgan leaves right as he does and follows him to the elevator. 

“you’ve been avoiding me all day, pretty boy,” he says, as reid presses the button for the elevator. reid doesn’t respond, just stares ahead. “did i do something to piss you off?”

reid shakes his head, “no, of course not.” the elevator dings and he and morgan both step inside. reid presses the button for the ground floor, and then steps back. 

“you’re not gonna say anything else? you’re not gonna tell me why you took off work last week and why you’re avoiding me now that you’re back?”

when reid doesn’t respond, morgan reaches forward and presses the emergency stop button. the elevator jerks to a stop and reid instantly protests, reaching to try and start the elevator again, but morgan just steps in front of the buttons and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“talk to me, kid. tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“nothing is going on.”

“bullshit,” derek calls, and reid finds himself beginning to shrink under his scrutiny. this is exactly why reid has been avoiding him. “last wednesday, you had a full blown panic attack right here at work. you talked to prentiss about it, and ran off as soon as i walked up. you talked to hotch, you saw jj this weekend, and you were all buddy-buddy with garcia and everybody else this morning, but you won’t even look me in the eye. that leads me to believe that i’ve done something or that you have some issue with me that you aren’t telling me about. something you started to tell me on wednesday.”

reid scuffs his shoe on the carpet, just to have something to do. he’s backed into a corner, quite literally, and he can’t think of a way to lie his way out of this one. clearly, he hasn’t been as subtle and discreet as he’d thought. 

“i told you on wednesday that there’s just a lot on my mind,” he murmurs, eyes steadily trained on the floor. he can feel morgan’s eyes burning into him. “it’s nothing you need to worry about, okay?”

“reid, you’re one of my closest friends. i’m never going to not worry about you.”

reid blinks hard, trying to stave off tears. _one of my closest friends._ he doesn’t even realize that that’s the whole problem, does he? he’s really that oblivious. “everybody else on the team has managed to figure it out, morgan. i would’ve thought your profiling skills were better than that.”

“figured what out, kid?”

“stop calling me that!” reid snaps, finally looking up and making eye contact. he sees the moment morgan realizes that he’s crying, so he forces himself to speak again before morgan can acknowledge the tears. “stop patronizing me and talking to me like i’m some little kid. i’m your equal, morgan. i’m over thirty years old, i’m not some twenty-two year old kid walking into his first day on the job. alright? so stop treating me like that.”

“pretty boy, what are you—”

reid’s rage starts to boil over. he’s so, so fucking tired of this. “and don’t call me that, either. stop calling me pretty boy and stop calling me kid, and stop putting your arm around me and stop flirting with me and stop making stupid jokes about us dating. okay? you can do that with garcia, but doing it to me just makes you… well, it makes you an asshole.” 

morgan flinches a little at the name—reid never swears, or insults anybody—and then folds his arms over his chest. “where is all of this anger coming from, spencer? because you’ve never given me any indicators that you’ve had an issue with any of that before. you only started acting weird last week, and i know i didn’t do anything differently then.”

“use your profiling skills,” reid clips, beyond exasperated at this point. he just can’t keep doing this over and over again. he feels like he’s about to explode. “what was different about last wednesday?”

“we didn’t have a case, we were doing a lot of paperwork. everybody was being super chatty and having fun, trying to make light of the boring work day, and savannah asked if she could come meet the team since we had nothing better to do. i brought her in to meet everybody, and the next thing i know you’re on the floor with prentiss working through a panic attack. and you’ve been avoiding me ever since.”

“right,” reid nods, his voice growing tight and more watery before. he averts his gaze from morgan again, returning back to his scuffed chuck taylor’s. “so you’re saying i was completely normal, until a particular event triggered a panic attack?” 

“i guess so, yeah.”

“what was that event, morgan? when did my behavior change?”

for a long moment, morgan is silent. reid knows that he’s not quiet because he’s confused—he definitely knows what reid is referring to. in fact, he probably knew it before reid spelled it out for him, but just didn’t want to admit it to himself because the thought put them in a weird territory. 

reid’s eyes continue to burn with unshed tears. 

“why did savannah freak you out so badly?” morgan asks softly, and reid’s eyes flutter closed as the hot tears finally began to slip. “i know you don’t like change, but it’s not like i’m leaving the bau or getting married or anything. we’re just dating, nothing is changing. i’ll still be at work, and i’ll still be dragging your ass out to the bar with us when the team goes out. there’s nothing for you to be scared of, reid.”

“i’m not scared of change, morgan. i’m scared of being slapped with the reality that i’d been trying so hard not to face for _years.”_ he sniffles a little bit, and swipes his hand across his wet cheeks. he can’t see morgan’s face and refuses to look, but he does find himself wondering what emotion morgan’s feeling and if it’s making his eyebrows furrow that cute way he does sometimes. “don’t make me spell that part out for you, morgan. i know that you know what reality i’m referring to.”

morgan sighs softly. “you have feelings for me, then? is that what this is about?”

“can you please start the elevator?”

“reid, we need to talk about—”

“no, we don’t,” reid insists, curling his arms further in on himself and wiping away the onslaught of more tears. _god, this is more humiliating than the panic attack._ “you have a girlfriend, morgan. a beautiful, intelligent, career-driven, perfectly made for you girlfriend. clearly i waited too long to say something and now i’ve missed my chance, and that means that we have absolutely nothing to talk about. so can you please start the elevator so i can go home? it’s late and i just want to go to bed.”

he knows how hysterical he sounds, but he doesn’t expect the pity in morgan’s voice when he says, “okay, reid. just calm down, alright? we don’t have to talk about it.” and it just makes reid’s blood boil even more. fuck morgan for being so fucking patronizing. 

morgan starts the elevator, and as soon as they reach the ground floor, reid takes off. he hears morgan calling for him distantly, asking if he needs a ride home, but reid just keeps bolting outside until he’s far enough away that morgan won’t chase him. 

usually, reid takes the metro home. but tonight, he splurges for an uber, because he doesn’t want to cry on public transport. 

when reid gets it home, he’s exhausted. as it turns out, pouring your feelings out to a man who will never return them is emotionally draining beyond what reid would’ve expected. one might think that reid would be used to rejection by now, and he’d probably agree. he’s just as shocked as anyone by how badly this hurts, how gaping the hole in his chest seems to be. 

he doesn’t bother with dinner or reading, instead just hurrying to his bedroom. he strips out of his tie and vest before flopping into his bed, curling up under the blankets and closing his eyes against the lights of the street lamps outside. he wants to sleep forever. he wants the ground to swallow him whole so he doesn’t ever have to face anybody, especially morgan, again. 

work will be miserable after this. reid’s sure of that. morgan won’t be able to refrain from shooting reid concerned, pitiful looks all day long. he’ll corner reid any chance he gets, trying to wheedle more conversation out of him. trying to make him _feel better,_ because that’s the kind of person morgan is. the kind of person who cares about other people more than he cares about himself. the kind of person who would put his own awkward, uncomfortable feelings aside to make sure someone else is okay. even if that someone else just set a torch to their friendship by being incapable of seeing him with a woman that clearly made him blissfully happy. 

reid considers resigning. he could get plenty of jobs within the fbi, or the cia… anything in the government, probably. or he could teach full time at the academy. they’d probably be thrilled to have him, and he’d definitely get tenure. but if he resigns from the bau, he’d never have to work so closely with morgan again. he could avoid all the drama, all the pain. all the pity. 

of course, reid doesn’t want to resign. it’s the last thing he wants to do. the bau has been his goal for as long as he can remember (which is his whole life) and he really doesn’t want to have to step down from his career. he loves what he does. but he also doesn’t want morgan to feel like he needs to be the one to step away. and he knows morgan would do that, if he felt like reid wanted him to. or that he needed to. 

reid doesn’t want him to, but morgan just might feel that he needs to. 

reid shoves a pillow over his head, groaning into the fabric. why did he have to be so fucking stupid? developing feelings for the most aggressively heterosexual alpha male he works with, the one person (besides maybe hotch) who would _never_ feel the same. he’d have better luck with _prentiss,_ and she’s a lesbian. 

maybe he was just destined to be alone forever. he’d openly admit that he wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. everybody that spencer has ever loved has walked away from him. abandoned him. not returned his affections. his father, gideon, blake, lila archer. maybe reid just wasn't meant to be loved. 

he’s not sure how long he lays there, pillow over his head and no sound in the room besides the sound of traffic outside and the echo of his own breathing. he feels like shit the entire time, though. years of holding onto this and in the span of only a few days, it’s all unraveled and turned everything into something unrecognizable. everything is shot to hell now, all because he couldn’t hold himself together in front of savannah. 

anyway, he’s not sure how long he lays there, but he’s startled by a knock on the door. he half expects it to be jj or prentiss worried about him, but when he takes the pillow off of his head to check his phone, he doesn’t have any texts or missed calls from them. and they never come over without telling him first. 

the knocking starts up again, louder this time, and reid forced himself to get up and answer it. there’s a good chance it’s his neighbor asking if he’s seen her cat again. she has this absolutely gorgeous orange tabby cat that has a certain fondness for reid, and sometimes when she’s in the hallway of the complex, she slips into reid’s apartment when he comes home. she’s quick, and manages to dart between his legs without him noticing. 

so, as he makes his way to the door, he gently starts calling out for her. he checks under the table and under her favorite blanket of his, and doesn’t find her. but the knocking is still there, so he goes to pull open the door, already preparing to tell his neighbor that he’s been home for a while and hasn’t seen her cat. 

but when the door’s open, it’s morgan standing there, not his neighbor. 

“hey,” morgan says quickly, like he’s afraid reid is going to slam the door in his face. “can we talk?”

“i wasn’t aware we had something to talk about.”

“come on, reid.”

reid sighs, stepping back and opening the door wide enough for morgan to come in. they make their way to the living room, where morgan sits on the couch and reid takes the chair. 

for a long couple of moments, they sit in silence. for once reid doesn’t try to fill it. he doesn’t have anything to say—he’d already said way too much in the elevator—and he wants to give morgan the opportunity to gather his thoughts. especially if he’s about to tell reid that they can’t be friends, or that he’s resigning, or that he talked to savannah and she doesn’t want them hanging out anymore… anything like that. 

statistically, 76% of men are open to the idea of entering a relationship with somebody they consider a friend. reid finds himself wondering if morgan was ever part of that 76%, before savannah. 

maybe about emily. he’s always liked emily.

“in the elevator,” morgan begins, “you said you waited too long to say something. how long?”

reid shifts uncomfortably, uncrossing his leg just to shift and cross the other one. “i don’t feel comfortable answering that question, morgan. and it’s irrelevant.” he stares down at his hands, sees the lines in them from how tightly he’d gripped the pillow to his face. he misses that pillow. with his face covered, morgan wouldn’t see him blushing. “if you’re here to tell me that you’re uncomfortable and don’t want to be friends, could we just skip to that instead of dragging it out?”

“i’m not here to tell you that.”

“then what are you here to tell me?”

morgan goes silent again, and then shifts forward so he’s closer to reid. so close, in fact, that he could reach to hold reid’s hands. “i’m here to tell you that savannah and i ended things.”

reid’s heart sinks. _oh no._ he’d told savannah about reid’s confession, and she’d broken up with him over it. reid’s inability to handle his emotions ruined his best friend’s relationship. “i’m so sorry, morgan,” he breathes out, feeling more and more breathless, like he’d been shot in the chest. “i never intended to—”

“why are you sorry?” morgan asks, shifting even closer—so close he’s about to fall off the edge of the couch—and tilting his head curiously. “she didn’t break up with me, spencer. i broke up with her.”

 _what?_ “why… why would you break up with her? you just introduced her to the team, i thought you two were serious.” he shifts into best friend mode, the concern rising even more in his stomach. “did something happen?”

“you could say that,” morgan nods. he looks down at his own hands, then at reid’s. then he reaches forward and takes reid’s hands into his own, and he doesn’t let himself be put off by the way reid tenses in confusion. “look… if i’d known that i had a chance with you, pretty boy, i would’ve taken it a long time ago.”

again: _what?_

“i just hope that it isn’t too late,” morgan continues, his eyes never once wavering from spencer’s gaze. reid finds himself distantly envious of how brave morgan is. “i know that you’ve been dealing with a lot of emotions recently, so i understand if you’re not ready to discuss my reciprocation. but i wanted you to know that i _do_ reciprocate. i’ve been in love with you for years, reid. i was just too scared to say anything.”

reid actually _laughs,_ and it makes morgan smile. reid’s always thought morgan was so beautiful when he smiled. when he smiles, he smiles with his eyes, too. it’s like sunshine. 

“you were afraid of me?” reid chuckles, and this time, morgan’s the one looking bashful. “i find that hard to believe.”

“i flirt with you all the time, pretty boy,” morgan teases, making reid laugh again. “you never flirted back or gave any indication that you took it as anything other than flirting, so i just assumed you weren’t interested.”

reid shakes his head, smiling so wide that he feels like his cheeks might crack. “one of the pitfalls of being an alpha male, morgan. alpha males have a tendency to think very quickly, and that rapid processing prevents them from effectively listening to and observing others. basically, despite being an amazing profiler, your impatience makes you miss out on subtle details sometimes. details such as an introvert that blushes and hides his smiles every time you flirt with him.”

they laugh together, then, and when it fizzles into more quiet, they both just stare at their hands. they’re still holding each other’s hands, and reid finds that their palms fit together so perfectly. it feels like home, in a way. like reid would be more comfortable with his hand in morgan’s than with his hand anywhere else.

“you didn’t answer my question, though.”

reid looks up, meets morgan’s gaze. “you didn’t ask a question.”

“is it too late?”

for a second, reid doesn’t answer. it’s a lot to think about, really. morgan’s fresh out of a relationship, they’re both pretty sensitive, there’s work to think about, plus the risk of ruining their friendship. there’s a lot of risk factors. probably more than reid is comfortable with. there’s more than enough reason why going through with this isn’t a good idea. 

but then reid thinks about the past few years of being so hopelessly in love with someone he never thought he’d get to have. but he has a chance now. this is everything reid’s wanted, this is _love,_ this is somebody who has seen all of reid’s sides—his good sides, his ugly sides, the sides he never wanted anybody to see. and he’s loved reid through all of it. not just as a coworker, a friend, or a _brother._ he fell in love with reid. he fell in love with spencer. 

this is something that people wait their whole lives for. something that people go through heartbreak after heartbreak searching for. something that people only get once, maybe twice if they’re really lucky. 

there are risks. reid’s spent a lot of time hurting because of morgan—indirectly, of course, not at all morgan’s fault—and there’s a risk he could get hurt again. hurt in a lot of ways. professionally, emotionally. 

but it’s worth it. 

“not for me. not when it comes to you,” he says finally, and the love blooms in his chest when he sees the way morgan smiles. 

morgan rugs on his hands to pull him closer, until morgan is all the way on the edge of the couch and reid is on the edge of the chair, and it should be uncomfortable but then their lips are touching. 

part of him starts to flounder, a side effect of complete inexperience, so he does what he knows. 

five things he can see: the inside of his eyelids, the stars in his eyes, morgan’s face if he opened his eyes, morgan’s eyes if he opened his eyes, morgan’s _lips_ if he opened his eyes. four things he can touch: morgan’s fingers, morgan’s leg, morgan’s waist, morgan’s cheek. three things he can hear: morgan’s breaths, the sound of their lips together, the soft pleased sounds in the back of his own throat. two things he can smell: morgan’s cologne and morgan’s shampoo. one thing he can taste: morgan’s lips. (maybe his tongue, too, later.)

reid relaxes into the kiss, leaning even more into it. 

kissing morgan feels even more like coming home than holding his hand does, reid thinks. he wants to keep kissing morgan for the rest of his life. 

_“love demands expression. it will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. it will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass that spills the liquid.”_

_–jeanette winterson_

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter if u want @bbysprentiss !!


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